A smartphone that sells for a tenth of the cost of a new iPhone is to go on sale in Britain next month.

Budget technology firm Wiko, which has taken the French market by storm, is introducing a range of phones that sell for as little as £60.

The cheapest, the Wiko Ozzy, comes with a 3.5-inch screen, a 2MP megapixel camera and runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.2.

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Budget technology firm Wiko, which has taken the French market by storm, is introducing a range of phones that sell for as little as £60 in the UK next month. The cheapest, called Wiko Ozzy, pictured, comes with a 3.5-inch touchscreen, 2MP camera and runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

WIKO OZZY'S SPECIFICATIONS

Screen: 3.5-inch

Operating system: Android Jelly Bean 4.2

Camera: 2MP rear-facing, VGA front-facing

Storage: 4GB with 32GB Micro SD card slot

Processor: Dual-core 1GhZ

Price: €70 - the equivalent of just under £60

Available in five colours and is dual SIM

Available in five colours, it currently retails at €70 - the equivalent of just under £60.

Britain has been slow to take advantage of plummeting technology costs which are making smartphones affordable across Africa and Asia.

Budget firms in China and elsewhere are taking basic smartphone chips and circuits, putting a cheap case, screen and camera on them, and selling them online.

Two years ago Wiko introduced the same idea to the France - and last year nearly 7 per cent of French first-time smartphone buyers bought a Wiko phone.

Carolina Milanesi of consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel said smartphone technology has been cheap for several years, but Western nations including Britain are only just waking up to the potential.

Budget firms in China and elsewhere are taking basic smartphone chips and circuits, putting a cheap case, screen and camera on them, and selling them online. Two years ago Wiko introduced the same idea to France market - and last year nearly 7 per cent of French first-time smartphone buyers bought a Wiko phone, pictured

Although the Ozzy phone, pictured, comes with just 4GB storage, it has a 32GB MicroSD slot. In addition to the rear-facing camera, the phone also has a VGA camera on the front of the device

While giants such as Apple and Samsung spend millions on research and development, marketing and sales, most of the emerging budget firms sell their phones online.

‘The margins are very tight,’ she said. ‘These firms have to have the right strategy and that will usually involve online sales.’

A few years ago the latest smartphone was the most technologically advanced device anyone could own - and consumers were prepared to pay a premium for it.

But now buyers have turned their attention to tablets and ‘wearable’ technologies such as smartwatches - and want to spend less on their phones.

THE BATTLE OF THE BUDGET HANDSETS

The Wiko will go up against the budget phone released by network operator EE last month, called EE Kestrel.

It is also available for free on a two-year contract that costs £13.99 a month.

Nokia recently unveiled a range of budget handsets in its Lumia range. The 630 (pictured) has the same screen size, camera and processing power as the EE Kestrel, but prices have not yet been announced.

The 635 is almost identical to the 630, but crucially supports 4G LTE,

Another budget brand taking Europe by storm is Kazam, set up by former HTC employees.

Its smallest model is the Trooper X3.5 which has a 3.5-inch screen, 1GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of RAM and a 2MP rear-facing camera. The camera on the front is 0.3MP.

Like the Wiko Ozzy, the Trooper is dual-SIM and has 4GB of storage, with a 32GB MicroSD card slot.

A UK release date for the Kazam range has not been announced but the phones can be bought from Amazon starting at £89.

The plummeting cost of making phones means that buyers are getting more for their money.

In 2012, 42 per cent of phones priced at less than £50 had a processor faster than 1 gigahertz - by last year 87 per cent did.

The cheapest phones may become cheaper still. Non-profit firm Firefox announced in February it is developing a smartphones that it could sell for only £15.

Dominic Sunnebo, global strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, said cheap phones may not have as big an impact on the British market as they have elsewhere.

Wiko's Ozzy will go up against budget handset EE Kestrel, pictured. EE's 4.5-inch branded 4G phone, manufactured by Huawei, costs £99.99, runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.3, comes with a 5MP rear-facing camera and has a 1.2GHz processor. It is free on a £13.99-a-month contract

Another budget brand taking Europe by storm is Kazam. Its smallest model - the Trooper X3.5 - pictured right, has a 3.5-inch screen and 2MP camera. Like the Ozzy, the Trooper is dual-SIM and has expandable storage. A UK release date for the Kazam range, pictured, hasn't been announced but prices on Amazon start at £89

Most smartphone buyers tend to take out long contracts, he said, so the upfront cost is low.

People rarely pay the full £500 to £700 for a top-of-the range iPhone, because the cost is absorbed into the £40 to £50 they pay in their monthly service charge.

Sunnebo said: ‘This Wiko phone is the cheapest to hit the British market and it will undoubtedly do well.

‘But in France, where it has been very well received, there is a different situation. The French market does not tend to subsidise the upfront cost of a phone as much as in Britain.

‘So while the pay-as-you-go market in Britain will be affected by this range, the contract market is unlikely to be as affected.’